Transnational Corporations and the Disjoint of Traditional Structures of Liability to Victims

Abstract

For as long as they have been on the scene, transnational corporations (‘TNCs’) have been a persistent problem for legal scholars at both the theoretical and practical level. In practical terms, the underdevelopment of legal rules applicable to the TNC in a jurisdiction in which it operates, legal inaction or complicity in wrongful acts on the part of state authorities, and the rise of dispersed corporate governance models, have allowed the TNC a great measure of freedom and consequent irresponsibility in choosing legal and judicial regimes which avoid the imposition of protective legal rules and help maximise profit by condoning mass cost externalizations. Theoretically, this situation has generated a great deal of uncertainty as to the place of the Corporation as an actor at the international or transnational level, or as to its relationship with local populations in the places in which it does business. A plethora of concepts exists, which is often invoked to justify particular approaches towards regulation of TNCs or transnational trade and investment generally; of this, justice and party autonomy stand apart as two of the most controversial and misunderstood, used by both sides on the debate to defend often diametrically opposing positions. This paper presents, in very brief outline, some of the main features of the existing legal landscape in respect of TNC - third-party legal relations.